re: Grounding, headlight switches

[Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 4 May 2005 farna@xxxxxxx wrote:

> Most of the time it's easy enough to fit a generic headlight
> switch from NAPA (ask to see the switch catalog!)to an older
> Rambler, especially up to 63 American and 62 big cars. After that

I never thought to try that. My solution was to disassemble the
headlight switch, replace the burned-out contacts with homemade
contacts from sheet brass and stainless screws, then install
relays up front. This was around 1990, pre-internet and I didn't
know of any AMC suppliers then. The relays take a fraction of the
current that the headlights do so even a crap switch will last
a long time. It's still in place today.

I took this to an extreme in my 70 Hornet. When I wired it (from
scratch, spools of wire) I ran all the front lighting through one
small fuse (part, head) and used relays. I used #18 wire, so the
harness is smaller and easier to work with. Used #8 to supply the
headlight relay set and #10 to the lights, about 24" away. Should
have good solid battery at the halogen lamps (Hella).



ANd grounds -- having nothing but old (over 20 yrs old) cars
most of my life I've gotten sick of farting around with bad wiring.
For anything mission-critical (ignition, start, headlights, etc, pretty
much anything but stereo) grounds are made by:

* clean wire stripped
* crimped ring terminal
* solder the crimped terminal
* drill 1/8" hole in chassis
* sand/file 1/4" diameter bare metal
* sheetmetal or through-hole screw (#6, #8) terminal to chassis
* soak with black enamel paint

Sounds extreme, but it works 100% right, 100% of the the time, and
essentially forever.

For inline splices, under-hood I strip the wires, twist
end-to-end, solder, with heatshrink over it. Soldering is
reliable, crimped butt splices are not if there's moisture or heat
around, and electrical tape is a joke under the hood. It's not
even very good for stereo connections under the dash, though I
admit even I will twist and tape speaker connections :-)